


your voice was the soundtrack of my summer

by sesame_seed



Category: MBLAQ
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 20:24:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sesame_seed/pseuds/sesame_seed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MBLAQ splits up when Joon goes solo, not entirely gracefully.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your voice was the soundtrack of my summer

_I: Stranger_

 

For the most part, Sanghyun enjoys his life.

Unlike most of his night owl associates, he likes to work mornings and afternoons, holed up in his tiny nook of a studio in Insadong. Hongchul-hyung will drop by with dinner to check on his progress, and if everything's on schedule he'll be free to wander the city at will until the next sunrise.

At night, nobody looks at him, and he's taken to embracing that cocoon of invisibility; he'd never been completely at ease in a sea of strangers even at the height of MBLAQ's popularity, and now, after the way that ended, something inside him rebels at attention from the crowd. Sandara dragged him up to the front of the room during the reception for Durami's wedding, a restaurant full of unfamiliar people who knew who he was, curious, assessing, and he ended up bolting to the restroom to throw up -- not stage fright, just an instinctive recoil against the most turbulent period of his life.

He avoids nightclubs and the popular evening hangouts. Most of the time he'll pick a random destination and get there -- by cab, public transport or Hongchul's car, if his agent is feeling generous -- then walk until his legs are tired, and hail a cab to get home if necessary. Sometimes he'll find a bench and sit there for hours, watching the shadows of pedestrians gliding by, or just lose himself in his headphones. Once he was mugged, and gave up the cash in his wallet without a fuss. Hongchul called him an idiot, afterwards, but he thinks it was a pretty valuable life experience.

Tonight, he doesn't go out. It's a little foggy, and he thinks he might be coming down with something; there's an ache in his bones that's usually a precursor to at least an afternoon of light fever, and for once an evening stroll doesn't appeal. Instead, he gathers some cushions, three blankets and a mug of hot chocolate and makes his way to the rooftop of his building. It's used for clothes drying by some of the tenants; there are laundry lines stretching from side to side, but nothing on them today, which is probably wise. According to the news, there's a thunderstorm hitting soon.

He likes the cold. It's ironic, because he's always been susceptible to it, bundling himself in scarves and thick goose down jackets at the first hint of winter, but there's something invigorating about frigid weather -- his brain operates better when it's cold, inspiration strikes more frequently. His best works were all written in the wintertime: _Co+dependent_ , which earned Carly Rice a Billboard Music Award and himself a nomination, was completed the week the heat went out in his studio and he spent each day trying to make his fingers respond to the brain's commands.

There's nothing in particular that he's working on now. Saturday Night Schoolgirls have been poking around, but he can't think of anything to suit the bold, sparkly image that they want to express. He's not very good at happy songs -- the three or four he's attempted since leaving school have all been rather embarrassing flops.

"You're not especially miserable, so why can't you just write about whatever makes you happy?" Hongchul had complained once, after he spent three days bitching about girl groups who insist on sweetness and sunshine.

" _World in Sand_ was about things that make me happy," he'd said.

Hongchul had snorted. "Nobody knows what _World in Sand_ was about. There are ongoing forum threads about it."

He'd shrugged, because it was impossible to explain how he'd been watching the sunrise on a beach and been suddenly, inexpressibly content with his life, and then worked a miracle by managing to convert that into a song without too much lost in the translation, at least to himself. There are people who call it a love song, there are people who call it a pretentious ode to aestheticism, there are even those who suspect it of being a snide denunciation of the entertainment industry, but nobody's ever called it happy.

People are strange.

"I'm so glad you're here," he'd said that night, and Hongchul had snorted and muttered "Damn right you should be," bustling around collecting the random scribblings that littered each corner of the studio.

Hongchul is his people filter. Back in the United States, it hadn't been about anything other than his sudden distaste for working with strangers; after he'd improbably pulled off a few hits and built up a solid enough reputation to work in Korea on his own terms, they'd moved back, and so far, he's been able to avoid tying the songwriter Stranger to MBLAQ's Thunder, or even to Park Sanghyun. Hongchul deals with all the negotiations and the paperwork, and on the rare occasions when he's had to collaborate in person with another artist, they've either failed to recognize him or agreed to keep his secret. It won't be the end of the world if he's found out, but until that happens, he'd like to stave it off for as long as he can.

While he's thinking of this, his phone rings: Hongchul's ringtone.

There's a moment or two when he debates whether or not to pick up -- he's tired, comfortable at least until his toes turn into ice, and the thought of work is particularly unappealing right now -- but in the end, professionalism takes over and he fishes out the phone with stiff fingers. Seungho did manage to drill some values into him.

"Hey." Hongchul, characteristically, doesn't waste words. "Got a request for a song from you."

"Couldn't this have waited?" He knows he sounds like a sulky adolescent, and right now he doesn't care -- his hand is freezing, dragged from the warm pouch of blankets. He breathes on it, and his breath frosts in the air, dissipates. There's a cacophony of blaring horns from the streets below. "I can't start on anything until I'm in the studio, anyway."

"Thought I'd give you time to think it over. You may want some," says Hongchul, and it's something in the tone of voice more than the words itself that alerts him. They've known each other for a long time, ever since he was working on his B.M. and Hongchul was a TA for his Counterpart and Harmony professor, paying him a sliver of extra attention just for being a fellow Korean, and though he's never been particularly good at reading social cues, he's attuned to every nuance of Hongchul's tells.

"Who is it?" A list of names runs through his mind: people he'd like to hear from, people he'd like to avoid, people who are bad news for everyone in the business, but the answer, when it comes, isn't among them.

"Lee Joon."

His mind goes blank for a little bit. He'd thought of Cheolyong, of Jieun, but Joon hasn't delved into singing in years; reports were that he'd decided to focus on his acting career, and the decision had paid off: for the past half-decade, he's been one of the brightest, highest-paid stars in the country. Sanghyun's followed his path through Internet reports and the random tidbit of information from Cheolyong. When he returned to the Korean music industry, running across Lee Joon again was not a consideration.

"He's singing again?" he says, stupidly, and sneezes.

Hongchul knows who he is/was, knows how averse he is to any connection with his past idol career. None of that leaks through when he says, "Looks like it. Got a call from his manager just now; you have a while to think about it."

"Did they say why they wanted me?"

Hongchul snorts. "Why does anyone want you these days? You're hot stuff, kid. Take advantage of it while it lasts."

His grip tightens around the phone; it seems colder all of a sudden, and he huddles in on himself. The ache in his bones hasn't gone away, and he thinks he can feel a kernel of pain above his left eye that's going to blossom into a migraine at some point. "Did you tell them no?"

That gets him another snort, this one twenty-five percent more disgusted. "I told them I'd ask. That's why I'm asking."

There are times when he doesn't like the cold, doesn't want his mind to be clearer, the world to be sharper. Sometimes it can cut quite easily enough as it is. "I'll think about it," he says, and ends the call.

***

The next day, he's sick.

Hongchul comes by with medicine, Kleenex and what looks like an entire vat of soup made by his mother.

"If you don't drink it all up, she'll kill me, and you'll be short an agent. So drink it all up," he says, pressing a hand to Sanghyun's forehead. His fingers are cool, and Sanghyun turns into it instinctively, can't help his brow furrowing when it's drawn away. "Stop playing cute, you should've thought of this before playing your let's-go-out-and-freeze-to-death games. Don't even bother to deny it."

"Sorry," he croaks, a little ashamed.

They'd slept together a few times back in graduate school, when he was still trying to figure things out, and the experience had been illuminating in addition to, well. Everything else. It would have been easy then -- it would be easy now -- to slip into a relationship, to let Hongchul-hyung take care of him in every possible way instead of just in work or health-related matters, but the truth is, Sanghyun doesn't want to be taken care of. He wants to take care of other people, and the only problem is that he's kind of crap at it. The only living thing he's ever successfully managed to take care of was a cat, which had been with the help of his entire family.

He forces down half a bowl of soup before his stomach starts to protest. "I'll finish the rest later, I swear," he says, looking up pitifully. Hongchul sighs and clears the bowl away, then comes back to watch him swallow his pills.

"So, what's your verdict on the Lee Joon situation?"

At least he hadn't used it as an opening salvo. Sanghyun stares at the glass in his hand and wonders how long he can drag out the silence before answering.

"I know I don't need to tell you that everyone else will be leaping at the chance to be featured on Lee Joon's comeback album," Hongchul adds, sounding careless only if you didnt know him, "so I won't."

"Are you trying to talk me into this?" He slants his eyes up so that he's glaring at Hongchul instead, even though he knows Hongchul doesn't deserve to be glared at; he's just being a good agent. It's not his fault that his client navigates the Korean music industry like stepping through a minefield.

"You think I want to watch you sulk your way through the entire song if I succeed? Please. It's up to you."

He goes back to staring at the glass. "It's not that easy," he says.

His head is aching full force today. It's difficult to concentrate. He'd spent a restless night, sweating and freezing by turns, passing in and out of sleep, and in his dreams, Joon had been waiting -- young and smiling and golden at one moment, aloof and turning away the next. He's never told Hongchul the catalyst of his identity crisis back in school, but it's not something he can easily forget, even now.

Joonie-hyung should have just stuck with his acting career and saved other people their headaches.

"You won't have to meet him," Hongchul says, and he looks up. "Again, not influencing you either way, but you won't have to meet with anyone. It's a straightforward deal: write the song, send it to them, if they like it, they'll use it."

To him, it sounds like the kind of deal that's so shiny it must be hiding something. "Can I sleep on it?"

"Do whatever you want." Hongchul disappears off into the kitchen with his glass, and a minute or two later he hears the sink running.

He sinks back into his pillows.

The first time he was sick, during the MBLAQ days, Joon had been down with the same bug, and management bundled them off to the hospital together. They'd shared a room, but he'd been too miserable to say anything, and assumed Joon felt the same. He'd spent the days drowning in the smell of disinfectant and rubbing alcohol, wondering how people ever got well in a hospital, but it had been reassuring to have the sound of Joon's breathing in the room, too, to know that the group wasn't moving on without him, that it was firmly anchored here, with two of them out for the count.

Joon had been that to him, in those days: an anchor. It was only later that he began to realize the flaws, the gaping holes in the defenses, the vulnerabilities that Sanghyun had learned early in life to hide.

He remembers, towards the end, watching Joon get thinner and thinner, smile less and less off-camera, drift away into his own thoughts when it was just the five of them together and it should have been a time to kick back, joke around and relax, thinking, _I want to do something for him,_ and never managing to come through.

He remembers.

Later, he'll blame it on his headache, on fever and fever dreams and being unable to think clearly, he'll swear never to stay out in minus degree weather again, but by then the calls will have been made and the contracts signed, and it's agreed: Stranger and Lee Joon, a collaboration.

***

"What do they want?" he asks Hongchul at the beginning of the session, his notepad laid out in front of him, ruler-straight.

He's not a methodical worker for the most part, but all his projects start the same way: the desires of the artist, research on the subject, and he'll jot down whatever among it all catches his interest, tugging together a collection of threads that'll either weave into a tapestry or tangle hopelessly and need to be snipped. It's unorthodox but it works for him: this far into life, he'll go with that.

"Something soulful to get the fangirls a-flutter, but with a strong enough beat to be catchy." Hongchul doesn't spare him a glance; he's busy with his laptop, fingers flying, the remainders of lunch spread on the table between them. "Just the usual."

He frowns, jots down a wobbly SAME OLD SAME OLD on the paper. "They went through all the trouble of getting me for the usual?"

"The usual's your bread and butter; don't be getting all artiste on me just because you've had a little success with the tween market."

"I know my limits." He drops the pen and presses his lips together. He has no illusions of highbrow craftsmanship: he's a pop writer, a surprisingly lucrative one, but he'll never be a legend or even a particularly respected name among his peers. That's okay, though; if there's one thing that he knows very well how to do, it's being satisfied with mediocrity.

"Chipmunk cheeks," says Hongchul, passing by him to dump the leftover sandwich wrappers in the trash, and Sanghyun flings the pen at him.

The day ends up a bust; Hongchul vetoes another trip to the rooftop until the temperature rises a little, and there's nothing doing in the studio. He tries out a few different melodies, but nothing hits home, there are no lightning flashes of inspiration to catch his fancy. It's just another song, he tells himself, another run-of-the-mill work for another rusty singer trying to make a comeback in a field he's abandoned -- but it feels like a betrayal to think that much, and he drives the notion out of his mind before the guilt can kick in.

"I'm going home," he announces, and Hongchul nods, waves him off.

The studio is a quick ten-minute walk from his apartment, a deliberate arrangement so that Hongchul isn't actually ferrying him around every moment of his life. Songwriters don't need and can't afford the same bodyguard slash nursemaid brand of managers that idols acquire, and it's rare enough to have one as devoted as Hongchul. Hongchul has other clients, though, his own office in Gangnam-gu, his own life for most of the day. There are lines in the sand that they observe without discussion.

The sky is overcast, dark already at four, and he's left his gloves at home. His hands are cold. He shivers, sticks them deep into his pockets and shrinks a little into his scarf. If he gets sick again so soon after the last bout, Hongchul will kill him -- or worse, he'll tattle to Sandara, who can be far more terrifying than any prospect of death. They don't meet very often nowadays, but that only makes her more fiercely over-protective on the occasions when they do.

The pedestrians pass like minnows down a stream on either side of him, on the edge of his vision. He allows the assignment to percolate in his mind during the trek home, with little to show for it. He could probably half-ass an acceptable attempt at cheesy pop if necessary, but. He doesn't want to think about that; he won't.

What would Joonie-hyung have wanted, is the question he puts to himself as he sets a pot of water on boil, makes a meal out of frozen dumplings. If he didn't have a secret identity as the artist formerly known as Cheondoong, if he were just a random songwriter, and Joon a random actor-playing-at-singer who wanted a catchy single to play with -- they could have met; he could have observed Joon's easy charm in person, asked him about what he wanted to sing, what it was for which he'd come. He can almost picture it: Joon's smile, his own awkward greeting (because even if they didn't have history, he'd still be awkward, wouldn't he? His lot in life.) And Joon's response would be --

He knows Joon. He knows the Joon of a decade ago, at least.

It's a start.

***

He digs out files of their old songs, listens over and over again to Joon's parts. His own make him wince, and he skips past them quickly; he ends up forming a track of Joon's solos over five albums that runs for over eighty minutes. He finds the one album Joon had put out after the split before turning his focus entirely to acting. It's important to have a good grasp of Joon's range, tailoring the song to him and not forcing him to stretch his voice to accommodate.

For two weeks, Joon's voice accompanies him through his life, and he ignores it when Hongchul asks him why he looks especially slow-witted these days. Joon's voice is strong, not entirely disciplined, with an edge of roughness when needed and sweet at other times, and in a way this is the easiest job he's ever had, because he recognizes its quirks, remembers hours spent in the recording studio laughing when it cracked, applauding when it scaled a tricky ascent.

For those two weeks he thinks of Joon more than he has at any other point of his life, including the period when they'd been roommates, including the period when he'd been wrestling with a crush that missed its window long before making itself known. He lives, breathes and dreams of Joon, goes through more recent magazines and watches for him on the television. He hasn't changed greatly from the youth Sanghyun knew. His good looks are in his bones, not his flesh or skin, and those remain the same: pointed chin, cheekbones like scythes. There is still a vulnerability to him, and he still doesn't look entirely happy, but maybe that's just the effect of the somber drama he's starring in at the moment. He doesn't do many variety shows nowadays; he doesn't have to.

Sanghyun writes and edits and writes and deletes and writes, spending full days in the studio until Hongchul kicks him out for a shower, and there are times when he wants to scrap everything and start anew, times when he's convinced that the song will bomb and Joon will hate him forever without ever knowing that it's him, but most of the time, it's just about the music.

When it's over, he looks and feels like a wreck and also like he's about to pass out, but he has two songs, not one, and either one of them is better than anything he's ever written before. It's difficult to look at them, like turning himself inside out and shaking all the contents out onto the table for the world to see, even though it isn't himself that he's laid bare -- and Joon, he realizes, may not appreciate what he's done, but at this point that doesn't even matter anymore.

He sends the music to Hongchul, and then he goes home, collapses into bed and sleeps for two days.

***

"He wants to meet you."

"No," he says immediately.

They're in the studio, Sanghyun tinkering with random chords on the keyboard, Hongchul gulping down dinner with his papers covering the desk. It's kind of nice that Hongchul will spend his spare time here, a reminder that he's not just an agent but a friend as well -- Sanghyun's only friend, at this point -- though sometimes he worries that he takes up too much of Hongchul's life, that Hongchul should be using his free hours to pursue something of a love life instead of fortifying a career that Sanghyun doesn't even really care that much about, but he's selfish enough to leave the worry untranslated into action, at least for now.

Hongchul shrugs, pushing another slice of beef onto his plate. "That's what I told him, but we'll have to see if it sticks."

He feels a rush of panic. If someone wished hard enough to discover his identity, it wouldn't be difficult: he's not known, but Hongchul is, and all they'd have to do is tail him to find the studio. "Maybe you should stop coming by."

"Maybe _you_ should stop coming by," Hongchul eyes him pointedly. "You've earned some rest time; now take it."

"Maybe I will," he says, nettled. He's not a workaholic. The studio's just sunnier and better decorated than his apartment, that's all. It has good _feng shui_. There are times when he comes and doesn't think a single music-related thought at all.

"Go, relax, paint the town red. I'll call if anything comes up." He thinks he should be offended by that shooing gesture from his own agent, but can't quite muster up the energy to protest, so he just collects his belongings and stomps towards the door.

He pauses on the threshold, hand on the door, one foot already in the hallway. "Did he -- did he say anything else?" It could be so many things: if he'd liked the songs, if he'd hated them, why Sanghyun hadn't stuck to their requests, why two instead of the required one. Other things, too.

Hongchul looks at him, but he can't read anything from that gaze other than the usual chronic irritation. "No," he says. "Sorry."

***

For the next month or so, he's not quite sure what to do with himself. He reads a lot: trashy detective novels about gruesome serial murders, comic strips, a history of the wine trade. He exchanges several emails with Cheolyong, who still thinks he's working a desk job in the States, and wishes, for the 203948th time, that it wouldn't cause so many complications if they just went out for a bowl of ramen together. He has dinner at home several times, hovering respectfully at the side of his little nephew, who's become the new ruler of the household. Durami looks better in new motherhood than either he or Sandara ever did in their airbrushed idol days.

There's even a weekend trip to Bali that isn't worth the price of the plane tickets; it rains the entire time, and all he sees of the island is his hotel room and the roads to and from the airport. He spends the afternoons sending accusatory texts to Hongchul until he finds his number blocked, which makes him compose a defamatory ditty in retaliation and deliver it by email.

By the time he returns to Korea, Joon's new single is out.

He catches it on TV, hears it in supermarkets while collecting groceries. Joon's management had chosen to go with _For You_ , as expected; neither of the songs are typical Top 40s fare, but _For You_ is a no-brainer. Sanghyun had written it for the fans, for Joon to sing to them, and the lyrics are obscure enough that most people won't feel the bite. Maybe they'll feel something off in the melody, something at odds with the relentless cheeriness of the lyrics, the trills and interweaving descant he'd inserted to keep careful listeners off balance, but Sanghyun doesn't think anyone without specific, personal knowledge will catch on to the fact that it's the most brutal song he's ever written.

In his own mind, it's an accusation, although maybe he's the only one who'll ever see that.

He's almost disappointed that Joon sings it as a straightforward love song, passionate and sincere, sure to charm the fangirls, although there are points here and there that make him wonder -- a sudden hitch during the bridge, unexpected intensity at the end of the second verse. If Joon had thought enough of it to ask to see him, surely he'd sensed something? Or maybe it had just been a polite gesture to thank the moderately well-established songwriter who'd tossed in two songs for the price of one.

The reception catches Sanghyun by surprise: whatever fairy godmother had been looking out for him during his first hits in the States is clearly still on duty, and he sends up a little thanks to her, both for himself and for Joon. The fangirls love it. The critics like it, too, even those who've been disparaging of his works in the past, and he reads with rueful amusement the speculation that the composer is someone else assuming his name, or possibly a ghostwriter.

It'll be interesting to see what they'll say when _Out of Reach_ comes out, if Joon's management decides to even release it. He thinks of it as 30-70 odds on; that one is blatantly, unashamedly personal.

He starts roaming the city in the evenings again, marking off areas one by one. He likes to think of it as leaving a footprint across each district, each warren of streets, and when he's finished criss-crossing the map with his tracks, the city will belong to him irrevocably. He knows its side-streets and alleyways, has navigated its slums and wandered the poshest of its posh districts where people don't even bother to dress up on their walks, and even though he rarely sees it in daylight, the city won't mind, he tells himself. Darkness softens the harshest of flaws.

***

It's a few days after he returns from Bali that Hongchul calls him.

"Check your email," is the first thing he hears upon groping around for his phone and activating the OK button by sheer accident.

"What?" His reflexes are a little slow in the mornings; he yawns, and covers his mouth. His nest of blankets is nice and warm, the darkness behind his eyelids is a comfortable temptation, and in another second he'll --

"Sit down, turn on your laptop, open up your email and read the new messages. Can you do that for me, Sanghyun?"

"Don't be condescending." It's always annoying when Hongchul treats him like a primary school student, more so when he actually feels like one. He squints his eyes open and does as asked, draggingly, yawning as the computer loads, then again while waiting for the browser, and it's thanks to the ameliorating buffer of drowsiness that it takes a full minute of staring at the screen to register what he's seeing.

When he does, the world tilts.

"What," he says, shedding sleepiness by the second. "What is this?"

"I passed along a message as promised." There's nothing in Hongchul's tone of voice to indicate that he's done anything out of the ordinary -- it's the same tone he'd used to announce that he'd shopped Sanghyun's final Master's project to Capitol Records and they'd bought it, whoops, did I forget to mention? And since you're technically a professional songwriter now, don't you think you need an agent? "What you do with it is up to you."

"Why would you even -- you know I don't deal with these things, you said you'd make sure I wouldn't have to -- "

"Breathe," Hongchul says, and Sanghyun fights the urge to fling his phone across the room. It's a very expensive phone.

"Hyung -- "

Hongchul cuts him off again. " _Breathe_. And shut up for a second. Do you remember graduation night for your Master's?"

That throws him for a loop, an entirely incongruous event, though not an insignificant one; he winces. It's not a memory he's fond of rehashing. "I don't see what that has to do with anything."

"Do you remember telling me that you owed me one, afterwards?"

Slowly, his face starts to prickle. He covers his eyes with one hand.

The night after the graduation ceremony he'd gotten very, very drunk. His allergies had taken an unexpected day off and the evening had passed in a pleasant blur, with the vomiting and headaches reserving themselves thoughtfully for the following morning, and there isn't very much that he remembers of it except brief flashes of clinging shamelessly to Hongchul like a limpet and saying things like, "If you wanted to kiss me, I wouldn't mind very much."

Hongchul had been a gentleman, of course, plus Sanghyun suspects that he would have passed out in the middle of anything untoward had it actually occured, but it had set the stage for a few months of faux-dating before they mutually gave it up.

"You never collected."

"Well, I'm collecting now." Hongchul doesn't sound smug, but he doesn't have to: in their battles, he nearly always wins. "That's all the reason you need to know."

He's never drinking again. He wonders what kind of incentives Joon, or Joon's agent, had offered to negate ten years of friend-slash-work relationship, and tries very hard not to feel betrayed. "I hate you so much, hyung," he says, coldly and sincerely.

"You do that. I'll call if anything new pops up. Be good, now," and the connection cuts off.

***

> From: gwakhongchul@strangeland.org  
>  To: hellisppl@gmail.com  
>  Subject: [FW] Hello~
> 
> Hi! Your manager said he'd forward this for me. I hope everything is going well for you!
> 
> I just wanted to thank you for the songs you wrote. I know it was probably just an everyday job for you, but they're really superb. I was really amazed. I wanted to thank you in person, but your manager says you don't do that kind of thing, so I hope it's okay that I'm doing this through email instead. You don't have to respond or anything.
> 
> I'm not very good at expressing myself through writing, so I'm sorry if it comes across strangely, but I was touched by both songs. Can you read minds? kekeke...
> 
> Anyway, I just wanted you to know that your work is very very appreciated! I would treat you to a meal, but I guess that would be difficult if you don't meet people. ^^ In any case, thank you so much! May everything you do turn out well~
> 
>  
> 
> Lee Changsun (Lee Joon)

He leans back in his chair after finishing, rubs wearily at his eyes. Joon's email persona hasn't changed much: polite, charming, a little bit over-eager, the way he was in person on his good days. Staff loved it; fans ate it up. Sanghyun had loved it, too, once upon a time, though moody, dispirited Joon was the one to cause a twinge in his chest.

Now, it almost infuriates him, how easy it is for Joon to stir him up again, shove him in a time machine to a time ten years past.

He's on the verge of deleting the email when the image comes, unbidden, of Joon composing it -- the way he'd probably be a little shy, a little excited, typing and deleting, asking the others to look it over for him (except there are no others these days, are there? But he always did have friends), and Sanghyun had never been able to deny him anything when he asked with that little boy look; it would be like abusing a kitten.

It'll be a little bonus to go with the songs, he thinks, biting his lip. One small service, for old times' sake.

> From: hellisppl@gmail.com  
>  To: lcs2908@daum.net  
>  Subject: Re: [FW] Hello~
> 
> Dear Lee Joon-ssi,
> 
> Thank you for your email! I'm glad that you liked the songs. I enjoyed writing them, too. ^o^
> 
> I'm sorry that I won't get to take you up on that meal; I'm not very good with people. I hope it's enough to relate to them through my music.
> 
> I'm happy that the song is doing so well. Good luck with the album! Fighting!
> 
>  
> 
> Stranger (it feels strange to sign an email like this...)

He feels unaccountably nervous after he sends it out, like waiting for an exam paper to be graded. No sense in it, of course; he'd made a clean ending to the conversation, Joon had gotten his appreciation across, and that ought to be the end of the story. He prowls the room restlessly for an hour, two, hitting refresh every five minutes or so, and this is why he hates people, this is why he'd stopped getting involved.

At noon, he forces himself out to the studio. He's learned to channel feelings into constructive outlets, and if he's going to go out of his mind with anxiety, it might as well serve some useful purpose.

The day passes in twitchy, discordant measures, nothing fit for actual work, but he needs to get it out of this system. He thinks of crowds, thunderstorms, a sheet of ice cracking across the surface of a lake. If he tosses everything into the music, it won't stick around to bother him. That, he thinks, is the secret of his success: simply the fact that he's a coward who can't deal with anything, so the audience gets to hear it all in his songs. It's one of the reasons why he's never agreed to an interview, in person or not.

His stomach starts to protest after sunset, so he packs up and returns home. No nighttime tours tonight; he wouldn't have the patience to observe anything. He ignores the blaring horns of rush hour traffic around him, the press of the off-work crowd, makes the trip with head down and eyes on the ground. The wind whips his cheeks and nose red. It's a relief to reach home, except of course that just means the entire cycle of checking his inbox and restless pacing starts anew --

Except, this time, there's a response.

> From: lcs2908@daum.net  
>  To: hellisppl@gmail.com  
>  Subject: Re: [FW] Hello~
> 
> Thanks for replying! I was told that there was a 95% change that you wouldn't, keke... I know this isn't your usual thing, so thanks for making an exception. ^^
> 
> The song is doing extremely well. ^^ My manager may be in love with you; don't be surprised if you receive a gift basket in the near future. (She's a little scary! But then, I guess all managers are, more or less, or they wouldn't be able to get us to work. TT TT TT)
> 
> By the way, I hope you won't mind me asking -- where do you find the inspiration for your songs? I know, I know, standard interview question, but I couldn't find any of your interviews online. Of course you don't have to answer, but if you feel like talking about it, I'd love to know. ^^
> 
> Anyway, be well!
> 
>  
> 
> Lee Changsun

He eyes the message warily, drumming his fingers on the table. This looks -- either it's a roundabout way of getting answers to specific questions out of him, or it's an invitation to a conversation, an aimless back-and-forth with no set endpoint. Either way, Joon is right: it's not his usual thing, and he should just step away here, ignore it and let his silence send a message. Joon's schedule must be busy enough; it won't take too long for him to forget.

It's just, it's been a long time since he's had a conversation with anyone outside his immediate family or Hongchul. It's difficult to hold one with his old friends without revealing that, oh, hey, everything you thought you knew about me for the past ten years? All a lie!, and he hasn't made any new friends since Hongchul -- even with Hongchul, it hadn't been as much about making friends as accepting his TA's help to not flunk out of class. And, well. Hongchul goes above and beyond the call of duty for him, but Sanghyun can't monopolize any more of his time than he already does. There are days when he thinks of getting a cat, but then he remembers what it was like when Dadoong left to chase celestial mice, and as far as he's concerned, that can remain a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Holding a conversation in these circumstances would be another kind of lie, but only a lie by omission, and Sanghyun's kind of made his peace with those. It's also -- this isn't Joon's usual thing, either, he thinks, at least not the Joon he knows. Something feels wrong, and he's not sure if he can step away, knowing that he might be able to help.

It could be fun, he thinks. It could be harmless.

> From: hellisppl@gmail.com  
>  To: lcs2908@daum.net  
>  Subject: Re: [FW] Hello~
> 
> Dear Lee Joon-ssi,
> 
> I don't mind. It's just a difficult question to answer. Not all songs are the same. A lot of it is just serendipity. I go out a lot and observe what I can, and I read a lot, too. Random things, not necessarily great literature. Sometimes it'll trigger something.
> 
> With the songs I wrote for Lee Joon-ssi, you were the inspiration. ^_^ (Sorry, that sounds odd, doesn't it?) I listened to a lot of your music, and learned what I could about you. (That sounds even odder...I'm not a stalker, I swear.) In a way, tailoring a song to a specific person is like getting to know that person -- so I feel as if I know you a little bit, kekeke.
> 
> Hongchul-hyung is more like a manager than an agent to me, and he's very, very kind, but yes, he's scary, too. Sometimes I think I'm successful only because I'm afraid of what he'll say if I don't do my best...that's why he's a great agent, though.
> 
> Take care; don't overwork yourself!
> 
>  
> 
> Stranger

He knows as he finishes it that this email is a surrender, of sorts. It says, _okay, let's talk._ It says, _I don't want to be a stranger to you._

Joon seems to get the message. He responds quickly, and from there they sink into an easy correspondence, one or more messages flying back and forth each day. He doesn't tell Hongchul about it, even when they meet. He tries not to think about it when he's not in front of the computer with his inbox open, cordoning it off from the rest of his life.

> From: lcs2908@daum.net  
>  To: hellisppl@gmail.com  
>  Subject: Re: [FW] Hello~
> 
> Dear Stranger,
> 
> Is there anything else I can call you? It feels weird to type that out...
> 
> What you said doesn't sound odd to me. Those songs were really amazing. I know I've said that already, but it's true. It seemed impossible for a stranger (keke) to write something like that. That was why I wanted to talk to you, because it felt like you already knew me. (Ah, this is embarrassing.)
> 
> Do you travel a lot? I always wanted to, but there's never really been a chance. It must be great to just pack your bags and go off to another country whenever you want. Envy!
> 
> Promotions have been tiring, but it's a good tired, not a bad tired. I haven't had the chance to perform directly for the fans in ages; it's nerve-wracking, but electrifying at the same time.
> 
> How have you been doing? Are you working on anything new?
> 
>  
> 
> Lee Changsun

> From: hellisppl@gmail.com  
>  To: lcs2908@daum.net  
>  Subject: Re: [FW] Hello~
> 
> Dear Lee Joon-ssi,
> 
> You can call me anything you want. ^^
> 
> I leave the country occasionally, though you'd be surprised at the different levels of culture and environment you can find even just within our city. Most people don't pay attention, or don't have the time to pay attention. I know that I'm lucky to have the time to roam around and soak in what I can of life, if only secondhand. I guess you won't have that opportunity for a while. :( Then again, you get red carpet treatment whenever you do venture out, so maybe it balances out!
> 
> I'm not working on anything in particular right now; Hongchul gave me some time off after your commission. ^^y I figure the royalties off your album will support me for a while, keke.
> 
> Even good tired is tired, though. I've seen a little of the industry. You're already at the top of it -- you don't need to push yourself too far. Health is important, as Hongchul never fails to remind me.
> 
>  
> 
> Stranger

> From: lcs2908@daum.net  
>  To: hellisppl@gmail.com  
>  Subject: Re: [FW] Hello~
> 
> I can call you anything but your name? ^^ It's okay, I understand. I'd rather just not call you anything at all, then, if that's okay. I don't mean to be rude. You can call me Changsun, if you want.
> 
> I love my job, but you make your way of life sound very appealing, too. You're right -- it'll be a while before I can do anything like that. I do like the thought that you'll be able to profit based on my album sales, though. I promise that I'll work extra hard, kekeke. Maybe you can tell me about the things you see, if you don't mind. If you're experiencing life second-hand, I guess I can experience it third-hand, right?
> 
> The current schedule is nothing compared to what I used to do, keke. It's not too bad, even though I'm older now. It's worth it. I feel from your songs that you understand a little of how difficult it can be, sometimes, the life we lead, but really, to me, it's worth it. Sometimes I forget that, so let me just tell it to you now. ^^
> 
> Gotta run -- fan-meeting in fifteen. Wish me luck!

> From: hellisppl@gmail.com  
>  To: lcs2908@daum.net  
>  Subject: Re: [FW] Hello~
> 
> Dear Changsun,
> 
> Sorry about that. :( It's nothing personal. I don't think of you as a stranger, if that helps at all.
> 
> Here's a photograph of Namdaemun Market. Do you ever go there? I try to avoid the night markets most of the time -- they're so crowded -- but I suddenly had a craving for dakhanmari last night, so I went. Have you ever thought of what it must be like to work a stall there? The idea's nightmarish to me: all the noise and the bustle, the cramped spaces and crowds, day in, day out. But they didn't look particularly unhappy. Isn't it strange, how different people are?
> 
> You're very different from me, too. ^_^ Maybe it wouldn't be nightmarish for you. I hope you enjoyed the fan-meeting. You're not living life third-hand, you know -- you're living it first-hand. I live vicariously off other people's emotions, but you have more than enough yourself, don't you?
> 
> I envy you your courage. You give out so much of yourself on a daily basis; do you ever regain the pieces?

> From: lcs2908@daum.net  
>  To: hellisppl@gmail.com  
>  Subject: Re: [FW] Hello~
> 
> Sorry for taking so long to respond. Your last question was a doozy, kekeke. I was thinking about it during an interview, and my manager told me I looked like an idiot...I haven't heard that in a while. I blame you!
> 
> But I guess I don't think of it as losing anything. It's the fans who are giving their love and support to me, isn't it? I'm only taking. That I have to work to achieve that is only natural -- it's the kind of work that everyone who makes a living puts in. You put something of yourself in your songs, too, don't you? Does it feel like losing it?
> 
> I'm not courageous. There are things in my life I could have done better if I'd truly been brave. I just like the spotlight, I guess...it's not even that. I like making people happy, I like making them smile. I like it when people like me. I guess that does make us very different, since you don't even want people to know you.
> 
> If they did know you, I think they'd like you, though. Just for your information. ^^
> 
> I used to go to Namdaemun Market, when I could still get away with it. Now, it kind of attracts attention. :( I make my manager get the mandu from Gamegol every once in a while, though -- they're delicious. You should try them if you haven't already! Thank you for the photograph. It's strange to think of you taking it -- there are times when I wonder if you're really a flesh-and-blood person, kekeke. 

> From: hellisppl@gmail.com  
>  To: lcs2908@daum.net  
>  Subject: Re: [FW] Hello~
> 
> Dear Changsun,
> 
> Well, I'm flesh-and-blood enough to like mandu!! Thanks for the recommendation~ I'll have to check it out someday.
> 
> Maybe you can't see it for yourself, but from where I'm standing, what you do every day takes an infinite amount of courage. You say that I put something of myself in my songs, and you're right: they're the parts I don't want, the parts I want to get rid of. I don't lose anything I want to keep. I think that's the difference between us.
> 
> Ah, why has the conversation turned so serious? I saw your interview on Star King -- you were very funny! Of course, you've always been. Did your manager really call you an idiot? You're not, you're not, kekeke.
> 
> I've gotten another commission, this time for Team Seventeen. It's going to be tough -- they want a bubbly, soda pop song, and I'm so bad at those. I think Hongchul accepted it just to make sure I didn't get a swelled head from all the nice things you've been saying about my songs on TV, so I'll blame you for that!

***

The song for Team Seventeen is less difficult to compose than he'd expected, and he supposes he has Joon -- Changsun -- to thank for that, too. It's been a long time since he'd experienced the dreamy, effervescent feeling of getting closer to someone he admired, the uneasy ups and downs of his mood: anxiety when he hasn't heard back in a while, worry that he'd said something offensive or hurtful (he doesn't know why the conversation had turned so personal, so soon; that had been a mistake), then the burst of excitement at the arrival of new mail.

Puppy love, he thinks, half derisive, half ashamed, and pours every bit that he can into _Lemonade_ : 30% sour, 70% sweet, and it'll go down well sung by a group of fresh-faced fourteen-year-olds.

In the meantime, _Out of Reach_ doesn't make it into Changsun's album. _They want to save it for the next,_ Changsun tells him, rueful. _I guess I have to thank you for convincing them that there should be a next._

His correspondence with Changsun continues. He doesn't think of it as a sham. In three months, he learns more about Changsun than he had in four years of frequent daily contact. It's different to approach someone as a friend to begin with, and not just a co-worker, he realizes, and maybe even more when there's the comforting buffer of the computer screen in between. He says things in their emails he would never tell his family or Hongchul, Cheolyong or the rest of his old friends; Changsun tells him things that he could never have imagined, back during the MBLAQ days.

At some point, he takes up photography in earnest. The camera of his phone doesn't work terribly well at night, and Changsun seems to enjoy the occasional snapshot of Sanghyun's evening excursions. He buys a Canon with a seven digit sales tag and experiments with all the different settings in a way he'd never bothered to before, and even when he sends out his failures, he knows they'll be good for a laugh. Changsun starts sending photos in return, of fans, fan-letters, of himself making goofy faces. Without make-up, he looks a little older, wearier, but still fundamentally him. Still a bit of a heartbreaker, and Sanghyun presses a hand to his own heart when he looks at them.

Combining his new hobby with work and the blossoming second friendship with Changsun, his days are full, satisfying, somehow more substantial than before.

It feels too good to last. He expects the second shoe to drop at any moment.

Changsun is in the middle of shooting another drama, a historical production based around the life of Ahn Junggeun, while Sanghyun's been working with Teddy Park on a song for YG's latest new singer. Teddy is one of the few artists who knows exactly who he is, with whom he's collaborated in person. Teddy's very professional in his dealings -- he'd never tried to be particularly friendly with Sanghyun, not even back when he was Cheondoong of MBLAQ and, more importantly, Dara's little brother; hadn't tried to act big brotherly like Se7en or Seungri, and it makes him a lot easier to deal with these days. Sanghyun is grateful for the distance.

One issue they have is that Teddy's never happy about leaving the cushy YG studio for Sanghyun's rather more modest one, but Sanghyun puts his foot down there: he's not stepping into a building where probably half the people who work there could put a name to his face. Gossip travels quickly, in their world.

This is proven by Teddy himself. "Weren't you in a group with that Lee Joon guy way back?" He still looks a little out of sorts over the fact that he's working without the latest technological bells and whistles. "And I heard you wrote a song for him recently?"

"Yes?" he says, warily. It's disconcerting that a slight acquaintance has easy access to both these articles of information, can draw his own conclusions from them, and he wishes briefly that he'd just sent the songs to Changsun under some other name.

"You should tell him to watch his back. Word's out that there's someone gunning for him."

"Gunning for him?" He blinks, once, twice. "Not literally."

Teddy throws him a look of withering scorn. "We haven't quite reached that stage yet, no. He should probably just keep his act clean for a while -- you know how fights in this industry go down."

He doesn't, not really. In MBLAQ, management had dealt with all that, with Seungho occasionally brought into their conferences; he'd hear a little bit through Cheolyong through his brother-in-law, but that was the extent of his involvement. Nowadays, Hongchul takes care of everything without letting it reach him -- he discovered the accusations of plagiarism surrounding _Co+dependent_ and the subsequent legal battles while surfing the web half a year after the fact.

It isn't something he wants to discuss with Teddy Park, though. "Thanks for the head's up," he says, and the rest of the conversation that day is entirely professional.

***

When he asks Hongchul about it over dinner, Hongchul eyes him for a few seconds while he shifts uncomfortably, then says, "Stay out of it."

"What's likely to happen?" he persists. Changsun's done very well for himself, but if there's one thing about the entertainment industry that Sanghyun does know, it's that nobody is unassailable; it doesn't take much to topple the block at the top of the pyramid for anyone who can reach that high. "Have you heard anything at all?"

"I haven't heard anything, and in any case, it's none of our business. He has his own company to deal with it."

"Even if you haven't heard anything, you should be able to guess -- "

Before he can finish, Hongchul slams his hand down on the table, making the chopsticks rattle. Sanghyun freezes.

"Park Sanghyun," Hongchul snaps, while Sanghyun fights not to stare for the second time that day: the last time he's seen Hongchul look so serious had been the day of his errant mugging. "Anyone who wants to go head to head against JYP's golden boy is either delusional or not someone you want to mess with, and, more importantly, not someone I want to mess with. Your little boyfriend will be fine. Let it go."

That jerks him out of his shock; he scowls. "He's not my boyfriend. And it's not like there's anything I can do -- I just want to know."

Hongchul holds his gaze for a few more seconds before turning away. "Finish your dinner, and I'll tell you what I think."

He glares down at his bulgogi bento box, scooping up a reluctant mouthful of rice and swallowing manfully. It's his favorite -- Hongchul knows all his preferences -- but he's no longer hungry. "Spill," he says, after laboriously consuming the entire meal without even bothering to pick out the slivers of ginger as he usually would.

Hongchul takes his sweet time polishing off his own meal (deliberate, Sanghyun is certain) before replying: "My guess is that he'll be hit with some piece of past or current scandal, blown out of proportion. Which, by the way, is another reason why you should steer clear of this."

"Why?" Scandal, he thinks, has never posed too much of a threat to Changsun. There are frequently articles about him with this actress or that model, photos of him escorting gorgeous women about on his arm, but never anything conclusive, never anything that sticks. For a brief period there had even been speculation that Sandara's smouldering glares towards him had been expressions of lust, and Sanghyun still shudders when he thinks of the ravaging his eardrums had endured that week.

Hongchul looks unimpressed with his ignorance. "Our culture's become a lot more open in the past ten years, but any suggestion of homosexuality is still going to have his career tanking faster than the Titanic. You might be able to get away unscathed."

He takes a deep breath; there's never any use getting angry at Hongchul. "He's _not_ my boyfriend."

"I've seen teenaged girls waving Lee Joon fan-signs looking less lovestruck than you, these past few months."

"It's been a while since I've had a new friend," he says pointedly. Ten years since he'd met Hongchul, and there are times when he regrets the meeting. "Anyway, you were the one who put him in touch with me in the first place."

"That might have been a miscalculation on my part." Hongchul shrugs. "I figured he would finish breaking your heart all the way, and then you could continue with your life and move on."

It takes a moment to fully register, and when it does, the fury and mortification take him by surprise. He can actually feel his fingers tremble.

He pushes his chair away, leaving the bento box, grabs his laptop and backpack and exits the room. He doesn't slam the door, and Hongchul doesn't stop him.

His feet know the way home; otherwise, he doesn't think he could have made it back without some kind of divine navigational intervention. He feels clumsy, blind, bumping against a few strangers and muttering apologies without ever registering their faces, almost tripping when he steps off the edge of a curb. Only half of his mind is on his surroundings; the other half is hiding far away, curled up in shriveled humiliation. There's a shrine in his heart crumbling into dust.

When he finally arrives home, stumbling across the threshold, he doesn't turn on the lights. Enough moonlight filters through from the windows for visibility. He drops into bed and covers his eyes, then breathes, deep and slow. In, out. In, out.

Gradually, the world settles, continents slotting back into their proper places.

He remembers one of Changsun's emails:

> There are still times when I spend days obsessing over one bad review. Does that ever happen to you? It's funny -- you'd think I'd be used to them by now, keke. Of course everyone is very kind, most of the time, but every once in a while I get stupid and look through the Internet forums...I wouldn't advise you to do it, by the way. I know it's my own fault for looking. It's just, every time I think that maybe this time will be better, maybe this time I'll finally convince them...and that's stupid. Once I see the insults, I can't unsee them.
> 
> Have you ever had a memory you wish you could physically pry from your brain so you could stop thinking about it? I think there should be a service like that. I'd pay a lot of money for it.

He could use something like that, tonight.

Rolling out of bed, he types out a short message to Changsun telling him to watch his back, not to take risks with his image. Then he turns on the music, locks into it, and doesn't allow himself to think of anything else until he falls asleep.

***

As it turns out, he could have saved himself the effort.

The news is splattered across the front page of the Entertainment Weekly website next morning, because of course the higher you are, the more people enjoy watching you fall. Sanghyun skims through the article once, then re-reads it again, more slowly.

It isn't a huge deal, as scandals go. For American stars, it would probably have been just the tinest blip on the radar. In Korea, it's something more, and for Lee Joon, who's had a more or less pristine reuptation since the bombshell of his departure from MBLAQ, it's something else again. Still, he'll survive the scandal -- it's at the level of impermanent ink, not indelible. There's no question of that. As an attack, it lacks staying power.

Sanghyun checks his email. It isn't the scandal, he thinks, that will be a problem.

There's a response to his (laughably overdue) warning, extremely short:

> Keke, if only I'd known you when that advice could have come in handy.

And then, in its own paragraph, with a few spaces in between as if to emphasize the disjointedness between the two,

> I would like to meet you.

He reads both lines over and over while his fingers struggle with a reply. The irony of the first is slightly painful, while he can glimpse the unhappiness behind the second, and the two combined ensure that the reply can never be anything other than 'no'.

He types:

> I don't meet people, but perhaps you can imagine someone with an arm around your shoulders and an ear out for anything you'd want to say, or silence if you'd prefer, in a bar where the bartender doesn't care and the other patrons don't really exist. You could talk about why you liked her, the little things that made her lovable, and that person would say something encouraging. You could talk about how it began to go wrong, the first argument, or if the flaw had been built into the foundations to begin with, biding its time, and that person would clasp your arm in sympathy. You could talk about the first time you met or the last, the things she said or the things you said, and that person would buy you another drink, and stare at his own drink in case anything you said made you slightly moist-eyed.
> 
> Can you imagine that? Because that's what I'm imagining. If you are thinking it and I am thinking it and we are the only two actors in the scene, doesn't that make it true in a sense?

He sends it out before he can start to obsess over whether it makes him sound just possibly out of his mind, then heads off to the studio. There's a thrum of nervous energy under his skin, something that needs to be exorcised.

Hongchul isn't there -- of course -- and Sanghyun wants to talk to him, but not yet, so that's good. There's no time wasted in preparation today: he knows exactly what he wants and all that's needed is to get it down before it evaporates.

It's nothing fancy, nothing he can sell as is. A strong, simple melody, and words that come tumbling out of his mind, scattering across the paper like wayward sheep. He plays it into the keyboard, croons along with his rusty, out-of-practice voice, but in his head it's Changsun singing it, Changsun giving it body and weight and soul and delivering the message with the intensity it deserves.

When it's done, he sends it off to Changsun as an attachment in an email with no subject or text -- there's been no response to his previous mail yet, but he won't think about that -- and then dials Hongchul's number.

"Well, this is a surprise," says Hongchul without preamble, and Sanghyun hunches over a little, because he'd deserved that.

"I figured I'd try acting like an adult, just for a change," he says.

There's a pause -- insulting if he thinks about it -- before Hongchul says, "Aiming high, aren't you? Don't worry about it. I'll tell you about my own sordid juvenile love affair some time when there's alcohol around."

"I think I've had enough of sordid juvenile love affairs for the day," he says, but something in him warms a little, and there's no way he isn't taking Hongchul up on that offer in the future.

"Ah, you saw the news? I wouldn't worry, he'll shrug it right off."

"Not all of us have skin of teflon like you, hyung."

They end the call after a few more exhortations to lay low on Hongchul's side and reassurances on his own that he's not crazy, he's not about to go busting in on Changsun at this time or any other, and this is why Hongchul is the one human relationship other than family he's managed to preserve in the past ten years; he makes everything easy, clarifies the world instead of complicating it. At some point Sanghyun will really need to learn to stop leaning on him and let him go -- he deserves to be fussing over his own life and not Sanghyun's.

At least he doesn't know that Sanghyun's just given another song to Changsun for free. That would just be cruel; Sanghyun can already hear, _Do you remember when you hired me? Do you remember what it was for? To get you the best deals! Do you know what you're doing? You are INTERFERING WITH MY JOB. Do you know when it's okay to do that? Never!_

He spends the rest of the afternoon noodling on the keyboard, trying not to think about anything outside the confines of the room.

Joon's email, when it comes, also starts without preamble:

> From: lcs2908@daum.net  
>  To: hellisppl@gmail.com  
>  Subject: Re: hey
> 
> She was just an extra in some mini-series -- Bus Passenger A, Random Woman B, I don't remember. Not a stunning beauty, but she was cute. Really, innately cute, you can't even imagine. She had a very soft voice, and something in the way she spoke just made you want to hug her. She didn't say much, but when she talked to me, it was to _me_ , not to big movie star Lee Joon.
> 
> Once I invited her to coffee on a whim, and she accepted. It was the most awkward date of all time, a bunch of fans recognized me and grouped together outside the shop, taking photos. I thought, well, that's that, but when we went back to the set together, she pressed my hand and apologized to me -- she felt bad for what had happened, like it was her fault. She told me that if I wanted coffee next time, she brewed really good Folger's. I think -- don't laugh! -- that that's when I fell in love.
> 
> I was so tired back then. Nothing around me was real, and I wanted something real. We went out for three months and I asked her to marry me.
> 
> \-- Of course, when I go back and read that line, it sounds like it must have been a horrible proposal, keke. I was so nervous. I'm not very good at keeping people's affection, so even though she seemed to like me in the beginning, I wasn't sure if she still did, at least enough to consider marriage. It went really well, though. She seemed happy about it. When she said yes, I was so glad. It might sound like a cliche, but it was the happiest moment of my life.
> 
> Time for another beer, don't you think?
> 
> What else? There were problems almost immediately. She didn't want anyone to know about the marriage -- she didn't want to be known as 'Lee Joon's wife', she wanted to make it in the industry on her own, and I was okay with that. We didn't tell anyone except family, though her family didn't like me very much, thought I was unreliable.
> 
> You already know the details of the wedding from the papers, I guess.
> 
> I thought that after the marriage we would be closer, but we couldn't go out together, we couldn't act too close on set, I still had a full schedule of work, and she was having problems landing a named part. Work was a touchy subject, and I didn't have that much else to talk about, so sometimes we just sat around in silence. At first I would just kiss it away, but after a while, kisses lose their power, you know? We got a puppy together, but I never had any time to take care of him, so she was the one taking him on walks all the time -- she took him with her in the end, of course. Arguments started small and ended big. We'd make up afterwards, and everything would be okay, and then it would start all over again, and I didn't know how to stop the cycle. It was never anything hugely important, just so many minor issues that piled up and up and up.
> 
> I wanted to give her the world, but all I could do was make her cry.
> 
> It ended badly. You probably know all about the divorce as well. Funny, how the papers all focus on the two least important parts of the entire relationship. If you take those two parts away, it really wasn't too different from any other relationship I've been in.
> 
> There you go, the entire sorry affair. It wasn't even worth raking up, was it? I don't even know why I'm upset now -- no, I do. You do, too, don't you -- thank you for the song. How do you always know what I'm feeling so perfectly, even when I don't, myself? Sometimes I have to wonder if you're real -- maybe that's why it's not hard to say these things to you.
> 
> Of course, tomorrow I may hate you for knowing all my secrets, keke.  
> 

It sounds exactly like what he'd pictured upon seeing the news. Changsun is right -- it isn't too different from the string of relationships he'd engaged in back during their salad days, before he'd gotten too deeply hurt and sworn off romance altogether, and while Sanghyun wonders if it's a good or bad sign that he'd been resilient enough to go back to making the same mistakes, a part of him can't help but be both charmed and worried that Changsun never learns.

It doesn't surprise him that he'd struck the right note with the song. There are secrets in his heart that he keeps well-guarded, a collection of treasures both ugly and beautiful that are too fragile to survive the light of day, and once they're exposed, they're lost to him. Despite the divorce, despite all the years in the interim, he understands that Changsun's marriage was a treasure to him.

It takes him about two minutes to write out his own reply; it takes him five hours to decide whether he wants to send it.

>   
>  From: hellisppl@gmail.com  
>  To: lcs2908@daum.net  
>  Subject: Re: hey
> 
> I hope you don't hate me. ^^ Here, I'll give you a secret to even the score, and then maybe we can just bury the past in a deep, dark hole.
> 
> A very long time ago, I liked a friend. I didn't even realize it until he left, and after he left, I never saw him again.
> 
> That's my entire story.

He uses the pronouns deliberately, and tries to ignore the sweat on his palms.

Fortunately for his keyboard and his sanity, the reply comes shortly after, equally brief:

>   
>  He was an idiot to leave.
> 
> You're kind of awesome.

***

_II: Sanghyun_

 

The next time Sanghyun writes, it's to talk about FC Seoul's run of bad championship luck.

They don't mention ex-wives or old crushes again, but even though it's swept under the carpet, Sanghyun can feel something in their epistolary relationship shifting, difficult to pinpoint -- they're closer now, but with a taut quality to it like a guitar string about to be released, an expectancy towards a future he can't see.

The scandal does, as expected, blow over. Changsun appears on Strong Heart to talk about it with a perfect blend of frankness, tact and remorse -- Sanghyun gives a mental round of applause to whichever PR guy cooked up the speech -- and ends with an apology towards his ex-wife for being a burden to her during their brief marriage, and well-wishes to her for the rest of her life. "I'm so sorry for causing you even further trouble now," he says -- flawless tone, flawless dip of the head to indicate shame, and Sanghyun wonders if she's watching, or if it hurts too much for her to watch. He doesn't doubt that she still cares: whatever he believes, Changsun is not a person to be easily forgotten. Being Changsun, he's not a person who forgets easily, either. He was probably even sincere through the entire thing.

Of course the next album comes soon after, with _Out of Reach_ as the title song, released as a single the week before the album hits. Everyone takes it to be Lee Joon's love song to his ex-wife, especially when his company leaks the fact that the song had been written well before the revelation of the marriage, and fangirl opinion veers back in his favor: look how deeply he felt for her, she must have been the cause of the break-up, what a conniving woman, trying to tie down Joon-oppa with her fox-spirit wiles.

There's a dissenting voice in the forums that points out, _If you pay attention to the lyrics, though, it's not about a woman...? The chorus is about how much he wants and needs her, but look, there's that line that says 'All women lead to you, but in the end you aren't any of them.' If it were about his wife, wouldn't it say 'All other women lead to you'?_ but is quickly piled upon for nitpicking, until someone uses the post as a springboard for a gay reading of the song, which sparks another flamewar.

Sanghyun skims through it all and marvels at the power of public imagination in exploring every interpretation except for the ones that are meant.

Changsun doesn't seem terribly concerned with interpretations, correct or not -- he doesn't seemed terribly concerned with the album at all. He writes Sanghyun to solicit his opinion on tanning salons, for movie recommendations, to talk about the ways in which his job is terrible and the ways in which it's the best, to ask about a decent brand of shampoo for hair that's gone through a million different shades and perms. Sanghyun responds as best he can, a little bemused ( _you look fine just the way you are, don't laugh but I actually thought the new Pixar movie was great, it sounds like the benefits outweigh the ills, keke, I use Shower Power and it seems to protect my hair just fine_.)

He realizes belatedly that the latter might not have been the best answer to give, but by then the mail's been sent. He'd started using Shower Power as a way to anonymously support G.O., but by now he doesn't even think of it as G.O.'s brand anymore: he uses it because it gets his hair clean without drying it out, and also it smells nice.

It takes Changsun over three days to respond; when he finally does, he doesn't say anything about shampoo. Since the beginning, he's been reluctant to mention his MBLAQ period or any of the members, even though Sanghyun knows that he keeps in touch with Cheolyong, that they're friendly, that he's at least on good enough terms with G.O. to go out for drinks every once in a while. Sanghyun knows all this through Cheolyong, who emails him a few times each year, and not through Changsun, who once managed to spam his inbox 50 times in a 24 hour period.

If it's up to Sanghyun, the silence will stretch on indefinitely. He doesn't want to have to lie.

Instead, he talks about music, movies he's watched, places he's visited, the random thoughts that stray through his head.

> Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you weren't an idol? If you'd continued to focus on dance, maybe stayed on at the university as an instructor -- I bet you'd be the most popular instructor there. ^^
> 
> Sometimes I wish I'd studied more as a kid, and had options other than music. A marine biologist! Maybe I'd be able to go down into the deep, deep reaches of the sea in a submarine and observe the eels.

and

> Winter's coming! I'm excited. You say you don't like it, but you're probably just not viewing it properly -- I'll build a Lee Changsun snowman when the first snow hits and send a picture to you. *.* Snow~~~
> 
> Do you realize it's been almost a year since we started corresponding?

and

> I don't really like going high up in the mountains...it's hard to breathe, at least at first. I spent the first two days in Lhasa too dizzy to do anything.
> 
> After that, though, I realized how beautiful the surroundings were. Nothing looks very beautiful when you can't get out of bed. TT TT I've attached the photos I took, but I'm still not very good at it, and I don't think they do the view justice. The cold is like a knife -- it wakes you up, makes sure that you're paying attention. To tell the truth, I think that if I lived up there, I'd write better music. The solitude is lovely. And in the evening, you can scoop up handfuls of stars.
> 
> It's just the initial ascent that's painful. When I retire, I think I'll just move there and never come down again, keke.

Changsun's response to the last is,

> Don't go.

And then, again, in its own separate line,

> Let's meet, okay?

Sanghyun doesn't respond to that.

***

He stops opening his inbox.

Guilt gnaws away at him when he's near his laptop, so he stops going home altogether. He leaves his apartment with his wallet, MP3 player and a city map, holes up in the Hyatt, and when Hongchul calls him to ask him where the hell he's been, he says, "On sabbatical."

"That's terrific," says Hongchul, and Sanghyun wonders if irony can actually drip out of the phone line. "Can I just mention that there are plenty of aspiring songwriters out there who _don't_ like to play hide-and-seek with their agents?"

His hotel room is very boring, and the city streets only slightly less so. He hasn't left his footmark over the entirety of Seoul yet, but it suddenly seems like a childish goal, an inconsequential milestone for a directionless life.

He continues on nevertheless, because there's nothing else to do. Itaewon today, Namsan Park the next, and he tries very hard not to think about his neglected inbox or Changsun growing increasingly worried/frustrated/annoyed at not hearing back. He should have sent at least a brief note, he realizes: _sorry, off to Antarctica, enforced radio silence, see you when the snow thaws._ Too late, now. The week passes in a dull haze. He's pretty sure he knows what Changsun wants, the source of his growing unease over the past few months. Sanghyun doesn't make the same mistake twice; Changsun, he thinks, never learns. There are times when he wants to ask, _How are you still alive?_

In his imagination, Changsun will turn and ask him, _Why are you still alive?_

The night he charts out one of the southwestern areas of Gangnam, the sky is dark gray, threatening, and it begans to rain shortly after his cab pulls away. Fifteen minutes later, it's pouring. He takes out his umbrella when the first drops start falling; soon after, a mammoth gust of wind turns the umbrella inside out.

After a few aborted attempts to repair it, he pulls up the hood of his coat and resigns himself to a sopping wet night. He tries to hail another cab, but the first ten that pass are all occupied by passengers a step ahead of him, and his shoes are beginning to leak water. Hongchul's office isn't too far away -- his original plan had been to make a loop around the district, then come back to snag a ride back to the hotel.

The night's destined to be a bust as far as exploration goes, so Sanghyun trudges off towards the building.

By the time he reaches it, it feels like he's shedding a gallon of water with every step: his scarf is soaked, his backpack weighs a ton and his sneakers squelch disgustingly. He trades nods with the security guard and takes the elevator up, steeling himself for the inevitable lecture.

Most of the rooms on the floor are dark, but Hongchul's office is lit, as expected. Hongchul has a lot of room to be talking about _his_ workaholic tendencies. He readies a cute, you-don't-want-to-lecture-me-you-just-want-to-take-me-home expression, then opens the door.

"Hyung," he says, and stops.

Hongchul turns, surprise flickering across his face, and then he says, "Looks like this is the evening for uninvited guests."

Hongchul's other visitor just stares. He looks slightly different than he does on the TV screen: thinner, sharper, pared down to bare essentials of bone, muscle and personality. He's dressed in usual incognito fare, a brimmed cap pulled down low, sunglasses on the table beside him, a coat with a high upturned collar, but there's nothing discreet about the energy leaking out of him -- he seems both tense and exhausted at the same time, like a racehorse nearing the finish line.

Sanghyun is aware of the water dripping off of himself onto Hongchul's wooden floor, the weight of his soggy backpack tugging down his shoulders, the sound of the rain beating against the windows. For a split second he hopes that ten years have changed his physical features enough to defy recognition, and then the visitor says,

"Cheondoong."

He sounds the same.

"Joonie-hyung." The old name comes automatically to his lips, and it's like being thawed out in the middle of a bonfire; he can feel a blush fighting its way up. He raises a hand self-consciously to the back of his neck, hitting the sodden mass of scarf.

"Stranger," Changsun says, and laughs; there's a hard, brittle quality to it. "I see. I get the joke now."

This is not happening, he thinks, unable to look away. It's just a dream, and if he tries hard enough, he'll wake up.

Even at the lowest point of MBLAQ's lifespan, Changsun had never looked at him the way he's doing now, like Sanghyun is what's hurting him.

"It wasn't a joke," he says when the silence stretches unbearably, and he gropes around for some way to explain, to apologize, but then Hongchul says,

"Kid, have you been walking out in that hurricane without an umbrella?" sounding like Sanghyun had just set his laptop on fire, and Sanghyun clutches gratefully at the offered escape route, turning to him.

"My umbrella broke." He displays the pitiful remains as proof, and tries to ignore Changsun's presence to the side.

Hongchul snorts and starts rummaging around in the corner closet, while Sanghyun can only stand where he is and try not to fidget. When he cuts his eyes over tentatively, he finds Changsun's gaze still fixed on him, assessing. Accusing, maybe. He looks away.

"Here." Hongchul emerges with a ratty gray towel to fling it at his head, and he catches it with both hands. "Dry off, idiot. If you catch another cold this year, I'll line you up with a season's worth of anime songs."

"I don't control the weather!"

"Do you happen to control your TV channel? Maybe the websites you browse?"

"I haven't been checking the news," he says, shifting. He hasn't been doing anything likely to remind him of Changsun, and Fate's probably having a good laugh at him right now.

At least in toweling off his hair, he has an excuse not to be looking at anyone right now. He listens to Hongchul's footsteps taking him back behind the desk, the creak of the floorboards, and tries to think, to draw up a plan of action that will leave all of them relatively unscathed; it's hard, put on the spot like this, and he's never been good at improv with an audience's eyes on him. If only Changsun would stop looking.

"So what can I do for you tonight?"

He flicks over a swift, resentful glare. There's no way Hongchul doesn't know why he's here; it's hardly the first time he's come to ask for a ride. He just wants to put Sanghyun through the wringer, probably as punishment, and understanding it doesn't make it any easier to take. If they were alone, Sanghyun would have bowed his head and acted contrite until Hongchul figured he'd suffered enough, but right now an irate agent is on the bottom of his list of worries.

"Nothing," he says. "Just dropping by. I'll see you next time." He hangs the towel up on the coat rack by the entrance and reaches for the door.

"I'll give you a ride home."

That doesn't come from Hongchul. When Sanghyun turns, he sees that Changsun is still weighing him with his eyes, expressionless. There's no yielding there, no forgiveness.

"I'll be fine." The refusal comes without thought. Walking through a deluge seems infinitely preferable to sharing car space with either of the occupants in the room right now. "I won't melt."

"I'll give you a ride home," Changsun repeats, and like the first time, it's not phrased as a question. This is the Lee Joon that the fans never see, the one who's carved a successful career out for himself in one of the most cutthroat entertainment industries in the world, the other side of the charming, modest golden boy, and Sanghyun finds himself giving in to the inevitable.

"All right," he says. "Thank you."

***

He follows quietly behind Changsun as they take the elevator down to the basement. Hongchul lets them go with a wave and a quirked eyebrow.

"In the garage," is all Changsun says, and Sanghyun makes a faint murmur of acknowledgement, staring at the floor. It feels like he's nineteen again, shoved into a five-man group fifteen days before debut, taking the place of a member that had been with the others for the past two years, walking on eggshells. He didn't much like the feeling the first time around, and likes it even less, now.

Guilt can make a person swallow so many otherwise unacceptable things.

He wonders what he can say: _You were the one who insisted on contacting me -- if I'd known we would have become friends again, I'd never have responded in the first place -- not even Cheolyong knows, and he wasn't the one who abandoned us way back when_ and, of course, the ever-shameless _I never SAID I wasn't someone you already knew._ None of those seem like the way to go.

By the time he reaches that conclusion, they've arrived at the car, a nondescript gray sedan that's seen better years; as camouflage for the vehicle of a major star, it's pretty successful. At least he won't have to worry very much about ruining the upholstery. Changsun doesn't say a word as he takes the driver's seat, so Sanghyun slips into the passenger side with obliging silence, wincing at the clamminess of wet cloth pressed against his skin as he fiddles the seatbelt on. He has to push the seat a few notches back -- the last person to sit here was probably a girl.

They exit the parking lot and turn out onto the street before Changsun asks, "Where do you live?"

He gives his home address without thinking, and it's only after he reels it out that he remembers the hotel. " -- oh."

"What is it?" Changsun drives without taking his eyes off the road; Sanghyun wishes he could not notice the way Changsun's fingers grip the steering wheel. The rain's battering against the windows like a small waterfall, and the multi-colored lights from nighttime Seoul throw shadows across Changsun's skin in quick, jagged streaks, creating an illusion of tears.

"Nothing," he says, curling his own fingers around the seat of his chair. He gets the feeling that he'll be glad of a grounding influence for the duration of the ride.

"You're not staying at home at the moment, are you." It's tossed out casually, an offhand statement of fact, and Sanghyun can't help turning towards him.

"No, but -- "

"Your agent told me," Changsun says. "He was explaining why I should stop stalking you."

He'd let it pass as a joke, except Changsun's clearly not in a wisecracking mood, and unfortunately it does sound like something Hongchul would say. "I'm pretty sure he doesn't actually think that."

"I honestly don't care what he thinks," Changsun says, which takes care of conversation for the rest of the trip.

Sanghyun's building doesn't have a garage, but there's plenty of street parking available; Changsun eases into a space kitty-corner from the front door and stills the engine.

"Are you -- do you want to come up?" Sanghyun says awkwardly. Having a betrayed and simmering Lee Changsun up in his apartment doesn't sound like a recipe for a peaceful evening, but the alternative is letting him go off to brood on his own, and it's like a band-aid, Sanghyun thinks: better to rip it off at once.

Changsun doesn't say anything, but he does exit the car, which is answer enough. Sanghyun leads him quickly inside the building -- thank god the management can't afford a security guard, all he needs is to suddenly be known as the tenant who entertains celebreties -- and into the elevator where he stares fixedly at the slowly climbing numbers, and then, once the doors open again, through the dimly-lit hallways to his apartment. He wonders briefly if he should apologize for the clutter, then decides that that's probably not the apology that Changsun's looking for.

Once they enter, Changsun toes his shoes off politely at the door, then begins making a round of the apartment like a cat scouting out new territory. Sanghyun follows behind, more slowly, stripping off the drenched outer layers of his clothes as he goes, wondering what Changsun makes of it. He doesn't keep personal photographs around, and all his awards are in the studio; at home, there are just haphazard piles of books and maps, and a bookshelf of DVDs by the TV.

At least his home is clean, if not neat. A cleaning lady comes twice a month to vacuum the carpet and scrub the mildew off the bathroom walls, and he doesn't cook that often, so the kitchen doesn't require much maintenance. There's really nothing in the apartment to be ashamed of, except for possibly the owner.

They pass the laptop on the living room table, and Sanghyun looks away from it. Changsun doesn't.

"When's the last time you checked your mail?" His voice is still cool, calm, but Changsun had never sounded that way when he _was_ calm; he tended towards careless, overblown gestures by nature. It was when he was on the verge of explosion that he made the effort to keep his body language under control.

"Five days ago." He fights not to squirm, but Changsun seems almost pleased by the reply.

"Delete what I sent after that," he says, "it's not relevant," and Sanghyun wonders what further part of himself he'd laid bare for Stranger, that he doesn't care for Park Sanghyun to know.

It's a temptation he can resist.

"So," he says, steeling himself, looking over at Changsun on the other side of the living room, the coffee table like a safe buffer between them. No sense in drawing it out. "It's been a while."

That's not the best lead-in he could have used, judging by the way Changsun's expression darkens -- storm warning -- but Sanghyun doesn't see the use of trying to cushion the blow, now. It's a bit late for that.

In some ways, he's very honest, although Changsun probably wouldn't agree right now.

"Is that really your idea of an explanation?" Changsun says on cue, and there's something in the tilt of his chin that makes Sanghyun think of schoolyard confrontations, of walking down the street at night and coming up against a masked man with a knife. It's not that Changsun is a juvenile delinquent or likely to strip him of his valuables, but the same tension is there, the understanding that this is a situation that is volatile, unpredictable and will very likely end in tears.

He supposes it's what he deserves for thinking that human relationships could ever be harmless. "You know most of the story," he says, because really, he's lied less to Changsun than to any of the other friends from his previous life with whom he still keeps in touch. The difference, of course, is that he'd never meant that much to them, just as Cheondoong had never meant that much to Joon, but he -- Stranger -- kind of had, to Changsun, and it's that for which he feels ashamed. "I did try to keep minimal contact."

"Why did you take the job in the first place?" Changsun's voice is rough, now, uncompromising. "What were you expecting to happen? You -- "

"I was sick, okay? I wasn't thinking straight." He knows he sounds a little snippy, but it's directed towards himself, even if Changsun might not know that. He can't blame it all on the fever; he had simply been uncharacteristically, unforgivably stupid. "I _expected_ that I'd send you a song, you'd send me a cheque, and that would be that." _And that it might be a chance for me to do something nice for you, in return for all the times you were nice to me,_ but he doesn't say that; it would sound awkward, rehearsed, and he doubts Changsun would believe any of it right now.

Changsun doesn't reply immediately to that, and Sanghyun wishes for some of his vaunted insight now. It's far easier for him to read people at a remove. "Does anyone else know?" he says, finally, and Sanghyun wonders how long he'd been thinking that, if he ever supposed that Sanghyun had singled him out, out of spite or any other reason.

"Hongchul-hyung." In this, at least, he can give Changsun what he wants. "My family, of course. A few people that I couldn't avoid working with in person." Nobody he knows very well.

"Cheolyong thinks you're living in America."

He shrugs, feels the familiar wash of guilt. "I was there for a long time."

"He thinks you're shackled to a desk, working a nine-to-five."

"He -- misunderstood something I said, back in the beginning. I just never corrected him." It's difficult to meet Changsun's eyes, but he makes himself do it. "I never actively lied to him, you know. Nor to you."

"Just sidestepped, hid from, fudged and pretty much screwed the truth in every way?" Changsun doesn't even sound upset about it, which is the unsettling thing: Sanghyun would prefer him to be angry, to demand answers, instead of being prepared to write it all off as _Park Sanghyun's a lying bastard, what can you do about that?_

In the end, ironically, the truth is all he has. "I just wanted to be left alone," he says, tiredly. "I wasn't trying to screw with anyone's head. I just -- people," he waves a hand, hoping that will explain everything, knowing it won't.

He doesn't know if Changsun will ever understand. Changsun has his ups and downs when it comes to relationships, his downs reaching further depths than Sanghyun's ever plumbed, but Changsun loves people; he works for them, smiles for them, will tear his bleeding heart out for them if they shout for it, and it doesn't seem to matter to him how fickle they are -- or rather, it matters, but it doesn't mean he'll stop. In the period just after the break-up, Sanghyun had thought, secretly and half-ashamed, that Changsun loved the idea of people more than actual individuals, that he must have, to give them up.

Sanghyun has never cared that much for people. Eventually, it seemed safer to give up on individuals as well.

"You were always a little weird about that," Changsun says quietly, and he'd forgotten that even while he's observing and analyzing people, others are doing the same to him. It's one of the perks of being a hermit that he hasn't had to deal with it in ages except from Hongchul, who knows everything about him anyway.

"So. Yeah." He shifts again, uncomfortably, sticks his hands in his pockets, then takes them out again. "It wasn't about you."

"Who was the friend that you liked?"

The question comes out of left field, and it takes him a second or two to process it and realize what Changsun's referring to. When the realization hits, he feels his face bursting into flames, sweat prickling along his neck. In the shock of meeting Changsun, he'd forgotten completely about that revelation.

He turns and heads for the kitchen. "Can I get you something to drink?" he says, making sure his voice doesn't waver. "I have water, Coke, orange juice..." It's probably as much of an answer as anything, but at least this way he doesn't have to come out and say it.

Except then Changsun says, "I suspected, back then," and he has to breathe deeply and tell himself that, no, this isn't a nightmare, and yes, this is his life, and yes, sometimes it's a pretty fucking awful one.

"You never said anything."

He doesn't mean it to come out accusatory, but somehow, it does. He can't help wondering what would have happened if he had realized his feelings back then, done something about them, and then, as Hongchul had suggested, gotten his heart broken all the way and moved on with his life.

Then again, it's him. He probably would have kept his mouth shut, wrestled with the problem without result, and it would only have made the confused hurt after Changsun's departure that much more understandable.

"I thought it would make things easier," Changsun says, the kind of answer with a shrug in it, and possibly Sanghyun should be up in arms over that, but he actually rather agrees with the evaluation, so he just pulls out a can of Coke from the fridge, pops the tab and tosses it down quickly. He remembers, now, how Changsun had distanced himself towards the end, rarely interacting unless a show called for it. He'd written it down to fatigue at the time, to unhappiness with the state of things in general, and just chummed closer and closer with Cheolyong instead. Given the eventual outcome, it hadn't seemed an outlandish conclusion. "There was a lot going on at the time."

"Yes," he says, placing the can, half empty, on the kitchen counter, still unwilling to turn around. "I remember."

Changsun either can't think of anything to say to that or is waiting for him to dig himself in further, and Sanghyun doesn't feel particularly obliging. It's been a decade since he's had to suffer through such a charged emotional atmosphere; he wants to shy away from it, head out and into the comforting anonymity of the nighttime streets.

There's only so long he can hide in the kitchen, though, and when he steps reluctantly back into the living room, Changsun is looking out the sliding doors leading onto the balcony, fingering the curtains like he can't keep his hands still, back straight, but still somehow giving an impression of weariness. Changsun does so much, shines so bright that sometimes it feels like he's Superman, but with the cameras off, in the mundane lights of ordinary life, he's just a man who doesn't know when to stop offering up parts of himself for consumption.

As Cheondoong, he would have been able to walk over, poke one of Joonie-hyung's biceps, ask him about a dance step or a gag for an upcoming program, draw him out of himself with work. As Stranger, he could have asked Changsun what was wrong, had a decent shot of receiving a straight answer, and given some measure of comfort through the buffer of the Internet.

At the bottom of it all, though, he's just Park Sanghyun.

"I'm sorry," he says, very softly, trying to let everything he feels -- _I wish I could help you, I wish I could make this right_ come through. It's a paltry offering, but it's the only one he has.

"What I want to know is this," Changsun says without turning, though the curtain trembles. "Would you ever have told me? If we'd gone on exchanging messages for five years, ten years -- after I'd finished telling you everything about me, would you have told me this one thing about yourself?"

Sanghyun doesn't say anything.

"Figures," says Changsun after a few beats, and he sounds resigned, unsurprised, turning finally to face Sanghyun. Sanghyun reaches out to him -- he's never been able to bear the sight of Changsun, hurt -- but remembers himself in time and lets his hand drop again. There's a wry little smile on Changsun's face, and Changsun's smile has always made his heart twist, but this one makes him want his heart to disappear just so it won't feel the way it does any longer. "Night, Cheondoong. Stranger, whatever. Have a good one."

"I -- you, too. Thanks for the ride." It's such a pedestrian way to end a relationship, even one that took place solely through the computer screen, but then, Sanghyun's a pedestrian kind of guy.

For the second time, he watches Lee Changsun walk out of his life.

***

Life goes on.

He doesn't tell Hongchul what happened with Changsun and Hongchul doesn't ask, just tosses him a job like a scratching post -- another filler song for Saturday Night Schoolgirls, this time -- and it's nice to be able to lock himself in the studio, lose himself in his work for a while, except that after he shows the finished product to Hongchul, Hongchul goes through it once before handing it back.

"Maybe get the teen angst out of your system before you start doing actual work again, yeah?"

SNS ends up receiving a generic dance piece from the rainy day pile, and Sanghyun receives instructions to take a break until he can write music that he won't be ashamed to hear on the radio a year down the line, which is good advice, if unpleasant to take. Like medicine, and Hongchul has always watched over his health very carefully.

At least he can afford to be idle for a while. There's really nothing to angst over, he thinks: he has a job he likes, a family he loves, a sizable bank account. He's relatively fit and not exactly terrible-looking. Probably lots of people would trade their lives for his.

He stops going out at night; the impetus is gone. Instead, he takes up cooking: there's something soothing about not having to rely upon the bubbles and spurts of inspiration, or deal with the straining and agony when inspiration fails. He likes measuring spices, following recipes to the letter, even though he knows that good cooks are supposed to go with their instincts. He has no instincts for cooking, and it's not like anyone's going to complain if he messes up a dish, except in the case where he made seafood casserole with a can of expired clams and ended up in the hospital getting his stomach pumped. Hongchul had complained plenty about that.

Sometimes, if he makes too much, he'll invite Hongchul over to share it, or send a few portions to his sisters. It's a little comforting, that he can do this much for them.

Changsun doesn't write again. Sanghyun deleted all the mails sent before their confrontation the day after, and no new ones come in to take their place. It's probably for the best; it would have been worse to try to continue a stilted, awkward correspondence that tapered off in mutual discomfort.

On the other hand, Cheolyong does write, obliviously cheerful, and Sanghyun gets the message that Changsun hasn't told him, that he's leaving the decision in Sanghyun's hands. It takes him all of half a day to make the decision not to reply at all: he lets the mail sit, and in a couple of weeks it's easy enough to forget that it was sent. It's a wrench to give up that friendship -- there's something irrepressibly _warm_ about Cheolyong that manages to worm its way through the usual dozen emails a year and that Sanghyun's never quite found on anyone else -- but that's all the more reason to not prolong the lie. It won't take Cheolyong too long to forget, either.

It's easy to let go.

Winter turns to spring, and he has to bid goodbye to cold weather. The Korean Music Awards announce their nominees, and Lee Joon is on the list for both Best Dance & Electric Song and Song of the Year with _Out of Reach_. There's never any real doubt that he'll win the Male Musician of the Year Netizen vote, just as there's no way he would have been nominated for Musician of the Year while being primarily an actor. The fact that his name appears at all is apparently fodder for controversy -- Sanghyun catches a whiff of it just by skimming the headlines of the major entertainment news sites -- but the voting is unaffected. _Out of Reach_ ends up winning in both categories, and all of a sudden he can hear it playing in the shops he passes on the streets again.

Gossip pairs Changsun with Yoo Inna, then with Jessica of the former Girl's Generation (and then, of course, everything else is forgotten when CL announces that she's pregnant, father unforthcoming, and anyone who has anything to say about that can take it up with her in person.) Hongchul starts dropping hints about all the artists lining up for his next song after the KMA win, what a great time this would be to get over himself and get back to work. Hongchul's never been that great at subtlety.

There's a night where he gets drunk again, alone this time, so there won't be an audience when he inevitably makes a fool of himself. The evening passes in a pleasant haze: he feels better than he has in ages.

When he wakes, it's to the stomach-turning smell of alcohol, a manky tongue, a pounding headache, and the knowledge that this is what he has left.

He starts going back to the studio after that. Hongchul eyes him speculatively after he deposits his first finished work in months, but it must pass muster because it goes in Hongchul's briefcase instead of back on the table, and slowly, the world settles back into its usual rotation: afternoons in the studio, working, and an occasional evening wandering the wilderness of the city. She doesn't like him much, he suspects, this presumptuous ant crawling around on her face, intent on documenting every new wrinkle. Most people don't really want to be known, and Changsun is and always has been an anomaly, in this as in everything else.

"Sanghyun," Hongchul says once, during dinner, and then, when Sanghyun looks up, questioning, shakes his head. "Nothing. Eat your food."

Life goes on. He gets by. The world turns. Nothing's changed, much, except that now he knows why it's so difficult for him to write happy songs, and stops trying. It doesn't make much of a difference, in the end; there's a big enough market for sad ones.

***

He heads for the roof again the night after he turns in a new ballad for some new upstart boyband, just to get some fresh air, clear his head. It had been a long, intensive job, a song that refused to come right, and finally he'd just done his best to beat it into some degree of submission and called it a day. Hongchul will probably get in touch later to yell at him, so he strategically forgets his cell phone in the apartment.

The weather is warmer now, almost summery, even though the night air still holds a bite to it. It's pleasant beyond his expectations. He has his camera with him, and he whiles away the time taking photographs of the sky, the cement floor, somebody's old patchwork quilt that they've hung out to dry. This is his world; he's comfortable in it like in a well-worn cardigan.

After the charm of photography palls, he leans his elbows against the waist-high wall running around the rooftop edges and just watches the glittering lines of traffic far below, cars scurrying along like insects. It's strangely hypnotic, and he finds himself humming parade ground ditties in his head, cheerful little tunes. It's been so long since he's managed anything in a major key that he almost feels the urge to jot these down, turn them into something more substantial, but in the end it's too much effort to run down for pen and paper.

It's only when he starts sneezing that he packs up his photography equipment and heads downstairs. When he steps out into his hallway, Changsun is there, waiting outside his door. 

He turns at Sanghyun's arrival. Sanghyun stops.

Changsun is swathed in a thick black scarf, with a brimmed cap pulled over his eyes, but still recognizably himself, at least to Sanghyun; something in the way he holds his body, loose but with the potential of sudden and flawlessly-coordinated exertion. He's fashionably dressed, or at least wearing his clothes so well that he manages to give that impression.

Sanghyun feels something settle inside him, a weight that makes it hard to breathe. "How long have you been here?"

Changsun shrugs; it shifts the folds of his scarf, reveals a flash of pale neck, hidden again just as quickly. "Half an hour, an hour? I wasn't keeping track."

He's not quite sure what to say to that. "You -- " idiot requires a closer relationship than they share at the moment, "you. Did anyone see you?"

"Nobody's been along until you," and something in the way Changsun says it gives it greater depth and meaning than is probably justified. "I called?" he adds.

Called the phone currently locked in his apartment, of course, and this is the way Sanghyun's luck runs. He rubs a hand across his forehead, tries to get his brain working. At least they've been spared the further complication of witnesses; he would hate to be the central attraction of the building's gossip mill for the next few months. "I didn't realize you had my number."

"Your manager gave it when I asked," Changsun says with another shrug, and Sanghyun doesn't want to know how he'd managed that. Or maybe he hadn't had to manage anything, and if that's the case, Sanghyun doesn't want to know about it, either. Hongchul's been watching him lately like a hawk over a rabbit, waiting for the first sign of vulnerability; it's a miracle that he hasn't found Sandara pounding down his door yet.

None of this answers the real question. "So _why_ are you here?" he asks, and it doesn't really help when Changsun spreads his hands and says, "I was in the neighborhood."

"Changsun," he says, and watches Changsun react to the name: a hitch of breath, nothing more, but he notices. It's the first time he's used it in person since they agreed to stick to stage names long, long ago, in the months after their debut. He's not sorry for using it now, though -- Changsun is Changsun to him now, grown-up, confiding of his secrets, someone with an ex-wife and a shining career; Joonie-hyung belongs to the past.

"What, I don't rate a hyung from you anymore?" The smile twitching up Changsun's lips might be the most unconvincing attempt he's ever witnessed among Changsun's entire impressive repertoire.

"Changsun-hyung," he repeats obediently, just to see a real smile coalesce.

Then it falls away, dissipating like a dewdrop under sun, and Changsun's expression is completely serious when he says, "I missed you."

It's a simple, devastating phrase. Sanghyun closes his eyes, so he won't have to see the way Changsun's looking at him, more defiant than expectant, but when he opens them again, Changsun is still there, and he still makes Sanghyun's heart break. He wants to be strong, to laugh it off, defuse what could veer dangerously into a Moment with a capital M, except what he says is, "I did -- I did, too," a little unsteadily, because it's easy to hold other people off at a distance, but difficult when they're right in front of him, sharing his space, breathing his air, and with Changsun it's impossible.

At first he doesn't know what it means when Changsun closes the distance between them in the corridor, and it isn't until Changsun's arms close around him that he realizes what Changsun intends. By that time there aren't much of his thought processes left over to analyze it; he can feel the warmth emanating off Changsun's body, the strength of bone and sinew, smell a hint of the mild cologne that he uses (Shower Power, Sanghyun realizes distantly). It's the first time they've had tactile contact in over ten years, and Sanghyun closes his eyes again.

It's not a romantic embrace. The gentleness of it is caution, not sentiment, and the segue into forcefulness is desperation, not passion, and Sanghyun feels his muscles tense, trying to hold him together. He's done so well for the past ten years, and now it's all threatening to fly apart, simply because Changsun needs him, and he.

He's never really been able to deny Changsun.

"Sanghyun," Changsun says, and that's enough to tip him over, his real name in Changsun's rough, unsteady voice, spoken like a prayer or a benediction, and he lets his head tilt forward, resting on Changsun's, slowly, carefully, returning the hug. It seems to flip a switch, and suddenly the embrace is crushing, painful, even, but he feels curiously untouched: he's a piece of driftwood to which a drowning man clings, and they're both being pushed along by the dictates of the current, nothing required of him but his presence.

Eventually he says, wobbly, "We should take this inside," and Changsun holds on a moment or two longer before letting go.

"Let's," he says, and Sanghyun can feel the breath of him against the nape of his neck and right down to his toes. It takes embarrassingly long for him to fumble out the keys and get the door open, Changsun following right behind him, a whisper of space between them.

It's dark inside, but enough streetlight shines in through the windows that the contours of the apartment are visible, the furniture stark outlines in shadow. He closes the door and is about to turn on the lights when Changsun presses him against the closest wall and kisses him.

Thought freezes. All he can do is experience: Changsun's lips ghosting against his, a tentative query, and then, bolder, a flicker of tongue. He responds out of instinct, memories of exploratory sessions with Hongchul flickering through his mind before disappearing entirely. He's enough of a romantic that he'd refrained from this during the occasional one night stands since then, and the cotton-candy kisses shared with various girls prior to that were a wholly different branch of physical demonstration, not to be discussed in the same breath.

Kissing Changsun is just...just. Sweet, uncertain, something plaintive in it, like a little boy angling for a cookie, and even as it reaches towards the deepest core of him and makes him dizzy, he knows it's wrong, it's all wrong. It goes on a second or an eternity longer before he pushes Changsun away, covers his face, tries to will the blush away, his heart back to tranquility.

"Stop," he says, "don't."

And Changsun says, "But I thought this was something you would want," and he has to pause to thump his head back against the wall, because it's been ten years and still Changsun keeps making the same mistakes.

Changsun doesn't have a learning mechanism when it comes to these things, he knows this, he needs to remember this. It's up to him to tug back the reins. He should have seen it coming; he'd suspected, after Changsun's last email, but then there had been the meeting and the confrontation, and he'd never expected to see Changsun again.

He takes a few more seconds to compose himself -- it's been going on three years since his last amorous encounter, his body doesn't quite want to comply -- before saying, "It's not something _you_ would want."

That's the wrong answer.

"So you'd know what that is better than I do?" Changsun says, and he's smiling, apparently lighthearted, but there's an edge to his voice that Sanghyun wants to smooth away. He presses both hands and his back against the wall, so he won't be tempted to walk over, reach out, provide the kind of brief and ultimately ineffectual comfort that he'd once sought from Hongchul-hyung. All he can do is take refuge in the truth.

"I know that you're not in love with me."

As Changsun opens his mouth, before he can speak, Sanghyun says, " _Changsun_."

There's a brief silence, and then Changsun says, with a bit of sulkiness, "I could be in love with you."

"But you're not," and he wonders why something that's so unarguable and clear-cut in his mind can be so hard to convey in translation, whether the problem is with Changsun's understanding or his own articulation.

He's seen Changsun in love before. It hadn't been with any of his girlfriends, and it certainly wasn't with him.

"Are you still that terrified of taking risks?" Changsun says, hard, and of course understanding isn't a one-way street; Changsun knows his weak points, too, knows just where to push to elicit the strongest reaction, but for once, his own insecurities are hardly the point.

"The risk wouldn't be to me," he points out gently. Changsun's always been out of his reach: he's known it for as long as he's known that he wishes it could be otherwise, and it has nothing to do with whether Changsun is straight or not, nothing to do with Changsun's feelings for him.

There's a reason why Lee Joon is the kind of incandescent phenomenon he is, and a reason why his love life has been a bit lacking all along, and the two reasons correlate. They're shackled to each other. And Sanghyun doesn't think it impossible for Changsun to find the perfect woman someday, the ideal helpmeet who will aid his career rather than hinder it, someone who can appreciate his character for what it is, both the strengths and the weaknesses, and take the black hole of neediness in stride -- someone who can provide him with the stable, unconditionally loving family that's assumed such a mythical significance in his mind. He's young, he has time, there are so many people in the world he hasn't yet met, and Sanghyun's not going to be an obstacle to that meeting just because Changsun can't wait.

Changsun is eyeing him quizzically, edges sheathed momentarily by mirthless amusement. "Are you really going to pull the 'I'm doing this for your own good' card? I would have thought you'd be above that, at this point."

"I'm not going to be your next ex-wife," he says, watching as the shot goes home. Changsun goes very, very still, his lips pressing together into one flat line.

"Low blow," he says finally, and Sanghyun thinks that it wouldn't be too difficult in the course of this conversation to make Changsun hate him.

It's probably what he should do.

"Look," he says, trying to pull logic back into the discussion, "you can see how this would go, can't you? Are you really prepared to trade your career -- your career, Changsun, only the most important thing in your life, remember? -- for a bit of, of understanding and warmth?"

"It doesn't have to be a trade," Changsun says, low, and Sanghyun can only smile at him helplessly, because how can he still be so _naive_ , and says,

"It would be, with me."

 _Any suggestion of homosexuality is still going to have his career tanking faster than the Titanic_ , Hongchul had said, and Sanghyun realizes the truth of that. Nobody gives a fuck what songwriters do in their private lives, and in any case all he has to do to avoid backlash is to take another _nom de plume_ \-- it's the only thing about him the general public and most of the industry knows, anyway -- but Changsun is an entirely different story.

"Maybe it would be worth it," Changsun says.

He's always been a bit willfully blind when it comes to relationships, and Sanghyun resists the urge to thump his head against the wall some more. "Maybe it would be worth it for true love," he says, though in Changsun's case, he's not even sure if that's true, "but -- and I realize that I'm repeating this, but that's because it's important-- _you're not in love with me_." He finally flips on the light switch; this is a conversation that should take place in painful clarity, he thinks.

In the light, Changsun looks less like the dream of schoolgirls throughout the country and more like the man who's had to pour 120% of himself into his work to get where he is. There are lines on his face that Sanghyun doesn't remember, probably concealed nowadays by makeup, and it doesn't make him any less breathtaking, just more heartrending, like a ravaged supermodel, and Sanghyun looks away.

He flinches automatically when Changsun reaches out to take his hands, but Changsun doesn't let go, and Sanghyun doesn't want him to, really; his hands are warm, strong, and Sanghyun remembers how they'd steadied his body through a dance routine, shown him how to move, how they'd comforted the unhappiness of a shy little girl that nobody else had even noticed.

"Sanghyun," Changsun says, "Stranger," which causes Sanghyun's eyes to fly towards his, startled; Changsun hasn't addressed him by that handle since their first exchange on the subject. He's always wondered what Changsun called him privately before discovering his identity, though he's not sure it's something he truly wants to know. There's a power in names. "You've been a lifesaver," and Sanghyun feels a chill when he realizes that there's a possibility that Changsun is talking quite literally. "You made me happy, the past year," he continues, quietly, like confessing a secret. "I'd like to make you happy, too."

He has to laugh a little, because of course this is all exquisitely simple for Changsun, too; just in a completely different way.

But he's been there before, and _It would be okay if you kissed me,_ he'd said, and the only reason that that had worked out was because Hongchul-hyung is a much better and more sensible man than he is, and has probably also never been in love with him. All scandal aside, Sanghyun doesn't think he can live a fragile illusion with Changsun without being buried under the rubble when it all comes tumbling down.

"You make me happy," he says, pressing back on Changsun's hands, because it's true, and maybe he can communicate the truth of it through touch, through the heat balancing out between them. "You make me happy as a friend; let's be friends, okay?"

He's never said this, he realizes with a twinge of shock; friendship had been taken for granted as a side-product of working together, which made the dissolution of it natural once that working relationship came to an end, and in their online correspondence, friendship had been assumed but never laid out; in fact there were times when he didn't feel entirely like a friend, more like a combination of associate and therapist.

Now he says, firmly, "I'm making pasta tomorrow," ignoring Changsun's look of startled disbelief, "and they're showing a _Fantasy Lover_ marathon at nine -- I was planning to watch that. You can come over, maybe," laying his offer on the table, take or leave.

After a beat, Changsun lets out a chuff of laughter and leans forward, laying his forehead on the crook of Sanghyun's shoulder, squeezing their clasped hands. "I'll be there," he says.

***

He gives Changsun a key to his apartment.

He still has his evening walks and studio sessions that last for days on end, and Changsun still has his work and the rest of his friends and entire months shooting a film on location, but every night he goes home with the knowledge that there's a possibility Changsun might be there, playing on the Nintendo Revo or messing up his CD collection, or that he might drop by further into the night, exhausted and drooping or lit up with adrenaline, and they talk and argue and watch old movies together. He cooks -- he's gotten better at it, with practice -- and when Changsun calls ahead, he cooks for two, and they have cozy midnight meals where Changsun talks about his day, and Sanghyun talks about _his_ day, and they compare notes and argue about who has it worse and bitch about the assholes that they know in common.

Changsun wants him to come clean to Cheolyong so that they can go out together for drinks, which Sanghyun nixes immediately -- he's not going out with either of them, separately _or_ together; he still likes having a semblance of privacy in his life, thanksverymuch -- but he thinks he will, eventually, tell Cheolyong the truth. Cheolyong's temper flares high but burns out quickly, and if Changsun's forgiven him, odds are that Cheolyong won't hold too long of a grudge, either.

He tells Hongchul that he and Changsun have made up, and Hongchul congratulates him, then sends him the details of his next job and reminds him to show up at the hospital at four next Tuesday for his yearly checkup.

"Your agent sent me a fruit basket," Changsun tells him the following day.

Changsun's manager bullies her way into a meeting with him after that, and he tries not to feel like a piece of horseflesh being appraised for market as she eyes him up and down, until she says, "Since you're friends, you really shouldn't keep charging for your songs, should you?" while Changsun groans " _Noona_ ," in the background in strangled tones.

And they're friends, good friends, the type of friendship that can probably be relied upon, and Changsun isn't in love with him, but there are times -- when their legs are tangled together under the blankets on the sofa, or when Changsun peers at the dinner he's prepared with hearts for eyes, as if this is the peak of the day -- when he thinks that Changsun could be, and at those times he remembers uneasily that it's his responsibility to keep that from ever happening. But then he'll reassure himself that he's probably reading too much into it, and there will be time enough to deal with that problem before it becomes unsalvageable.

There are ups and downs, hot disputes and brief cold wars, weeks where they don't see each other at all and the occasional dreary moment when he thinks it's better that way, but --

For the most part, Sanghyun enjoys his life, and he thinks that Changsun does, too.

End


End file.
